The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reports that a 29-year-old Gaza woman was strangled Friday "to maintain family honor." It strongly condemns the killing, and reports that there have been seven honor-killings in Palestine this year, with ten victims. All but one of the crimes was in Gaza. I know that Code Pink, the feminist peace group that is helping to lead the Gaza freedom march, has also condemned these crimes…
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These killings are, of course, horrendous crimes, but they are a ridiculous bludgeon against Muslims and Arabs, when we consider how many thousands of women are killed in the West every year, by husbands, partners, exes, etc. They have “honour killings” and we have “domestic violence”. I just see men killing women, and a lot of hypocrisy.
I never thought of it that way. That is an excellent observation. I came up with this after a quick search.
US: Soaring Rates of Rape and Violence Against Women
Unfortunately, incidents of honor killings in some Middle Eastern countries is used as an excuse to justify Israels occupation of the Palestinian people by some ardent Zionists.
Imagine if China justified occupying the United States due to ridiculous amounts of domestic violence that occur here.
Let us not condemn these guilty parties…They are just doing their best in such circumstances…They believe what they are doing is morally right, and wise.
Rather question were that heinous idea comes from…that is the real source of this evil!
What’s the ‘real source’ zamaaz?
Who said that honor killing is right and justifyable!
If no one ever said, then why were they doing that widescale?
wtf are you going on about ?
I was wondering the same thing. The guy is an ass anyway.
It’s a commonplace in social work that when a family is under stress, spousal and child abuse soars. No families are under more stress than in Gaza.
That’s true, gaza families are under a lot of stress which is probably why there are honor killings in gaza.
Conversely, there have been only seven of these incidents in the whole of Palestine. Even one is too many, of course, but I think, given how extreme the circumstances they have to live under, that’s a real credit to the Palestinian people, honestly, that there are relatively few incidents like this. Compare this to how other societies have strayed under comparable pressures — say, for instance, post-WW1 Germany, and we all saw what sort of atrocities emerged as German society degraded.
Let’s not absolve the Arab male of this crime so readily. I very much doubt there have been only 7 honor killings in all of the Palestinian territories. What happens is they aren’t reported, no one is charged.
In Israel, there is a single notorious clan that has by now killed almost ten of its daughters and sisters. link to haaretz.com
And there is no excuse for them.
Why is it called Honor killing? Is it different that the other type of abuse?
To answer your first question: the concept of the family as a vital social unit is very high in the Middle East, dating back even before Islam. The notion of honor killing is one of those tribal artifacts, rejected by mainstream Middle Eastern culture everywhere except perhaps our good friend and close ally, Saudi Arabia. The idea is that a woman in the family who loses her virginity — or is even suspected of such, or commits adultery or some other perceived infidelity — becomes a source of dishonor for the family and the only way to rectify it is to murder her.
To answer your second question: it isn’t. Not essentially. The motives and the methods are pretty much identical.
In honour killing there is a strong element of “loosing the face in the local community” and the killing is often condoned by the other members of the family and there may be corroboration between family members.
In western version of domestic violence the prevailing element is dynamics between couple, with no outside participants. There is also link between stress ( due to lack of control of the outside happenings) and compensatory need to be in control inside the family unit.
What both types of violence have in common is the sense of entitlement to control women and to punish them for perceived trespasses to a degree not visited on males in the same culture and /or community.